


Scatterglass

by somehowunbroken



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Community: queer_fest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jason comes back in pieces, broken and bandaged and bruised. His body comes back and his memories follow a year later, and even then there are holes, things out of order.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scatterglass

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://queer-fest.livejournal.com/profile)[**queer_fest**](http://queer-fest.livejournal.com/) 2012\. The prompt: _Any fandom, any character, a character returns from the dead with different ideas about their orientation or gender identity. Did they 'come back wrong' or are they just finally discovering who they really are?_ I'd like to point out that, for the purposes of this story, "wrong" doesn't mean "bad" - it means "different". There's nothing inherently wrong about any sort of sexual orientation or identity, but if a person were to come back with a different orientation than they'd died with, that would be considered "wrong" because it's not how they had been - hence, "wrong" being "different", not "bad". Takes place during the "Lost Days" arc. Eternal thanks to [](http://ariadne83.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ariadne83**](http://ariadne83.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://shinysylver.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**shinysylver**](http://shinysylver.dreamwidth.org/) (and her brother) for audiencing and doing beta work.

Jason comes back in pieces, broken and bandaged and bruised. His body comes back and his memories follow a year later, and even then there are holes, things out of order.

“Ask me questions,” Talia says when Jason tries to explain. “Anything that you need to know, little one. I will answer to the best of my ability.”

Jason just nods when she says it, tucking the thought away and mulling it over. He’s got questions, of course; _how did I get back here_ is the foremost, followed by _why didn’t Bruce come for me_ and _why is the Joker still alive_. He’s asked those already, though, and Talia’s answers had been almost helpless: _I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know_.

He asks her for details after that.

“What was my favorite food?” he asks, because he’s got flashes of eating things and enjoying them all, pizza and cheeseburgers and a cake so rich it smells like your stomach aching.

“Chili dogs,” Talia answers.

Jason thinks about it. “I don’t remember chili dogs.”

Talia smiles, and the next time they stop, she brings him to a cart on the street and orders something. Jason takes it and eats it in three bites, and there’s another memory sliding into place like it had never left. Chili dogs.

“Did I have bad habits?” he asks next. He remembers Bruce’s face frowning, Bruce saying _that’s a bad habit, Jason_. He just can’t remember what it is.

“You smoked,” Talia says after a beat. “Bruce hated it.”

Jason nods, feels the smoke waft around his face, can almost taste the burn and smell the sulfur from the matches.

He spends longer thinking about his next question. It’s something he should remember, damn it, but isn’t all of it?

“Question,” he says to Talia. “What was my boyfriend’s name?”

Talia looks surprised like she hasn’t for any of his other questions. “Your what?”

“Boyfriend,” Jason says again. “What was his name?”

“Jason,” she says, a little line appearing between her eyes. It’s as much as she ever frowns. “You didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I – he-” And now Jason is frowning, because he’s got the guy in his head, a picture clearer than his memories of his mother and father. The guy smiles out from Jason’s fractured mind, fond amusement in sparkling green eyes, shaggy hair falling across his face. Jason holds his hands out in front of him and feels phantom hands covering them, warm and soft. Not working hands, he knows that; no calluses, neat nails, smooth skin.

“He’s blonde,” Jason says finally. “Bigger than me, maybe a little older. Green eyes.”

Talia shakes her head. “It’s nobody I know about, Jason, and believe me when I say that I know everyone that you knew.”

The trouble is, Jason _does_ believe her.

-0-

He finds himself thinking about the guy more and more often.

“You’re sure I didn’t have a boyfriend?” he asks Talia a week later. She frowns at him as she shakes her head.

“You spent your time chasing women,” she says. “Intelligence indicates that you showed an interest in both Wonder Girl and Starfire.”

 _Wonder Girl_ is a flash of black hair, a sparkling smile, a punch like he hadn’t known a girl could throw; _Starfire_ is bright green eyes, miles and miles of red hair, and Dick’s fond expression.

“Oh,” he says instead of what he’s thinking. Somehow he doesn’t think Talia needs to know about how he feels nothing for those memories, about how much he wants to remember the guy with the blonde hair and crooked smile.

Talia probably already knows.

-0-

The thing is, Jason believes it when Talia says he’d chased after the girls. He believes what she says about him not having a boyfriend. He believes it, even though his memories are telling him otherwise, because-

Because-

His mind is scatterglass, shining fragments of memory all put together backwards, and held together with Lazarus green. Some days he thinks he can barely remember his own name, so how can he trust what he’s thinking, what he thinks he’s remembering? How can he be any kind of sure that he’s recalling the guy right, that’s he’s recalling him at all? How can he know that his brain isn’t just making things up to fill in the holes?

Jason takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and thinks about nothing until nothing is in his head, no blonde hair, no green eyes, no _guy_ at all.

-0-

The thing is, not thinking about the guy doesn’t make the issue go away. Jason tests himself when he’s meeting with Talia. He looks around, takes in the people at the next table over; they’re young, probably early to mid-twenties, two guys and two girls. They’re all attractive, but Jason finds his eyes drawn to broader shoulders and squarer jaws, shorter hair and more solid stances.

“I think your Pit did something to my head,” Jason says one night, and Talia smiles.

“Of course it did,” she says, amused. “We’ve known that for some time now.”

Jason shrugs. “Something else.”

Talia shifts, her smile slipping into a frown. “Are you feeling some adverse effects?”

“Is it possible that it put me back together differently?” he asks instead of answering. “Like, did it change me?”

She tilts her head to the side, considering. “I suppose it’s possible,” she finally replies. “I cannot presume that I know every side effect that the Pit can have. Just because my father bears no side effects – other than the madness that I warned you about, of course – does not mean that there are no side effects to bear.”

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know if it’s the Lazarus Pit that’s made him this way, or if it’s just something that he was really, really good at hiding before.

She doesn’t know, and he can’t answer the question himself.

-0-

“I’m think gay,” Jason says, testing the words out. “Maybe bisexual.”

Talia doesn’t blink. “You didn’t appear to be before.”

“I am now,” he returns with a shrug. “Either I was lying before, or all the king’s horses and all the king’s men got a few pieces mixed up when they put me together again.”

Talia studies him for a moment before nodding. “Are you okay with this?”

Jason looks around the café they’re in and catches the eye of a guy in the corner. His hair is a shade or two darker than blonde, his eyes more blue than green, but Jason gives him a slow smile, and the guy smiles back.

He shrugs, turning his attention back to Talia. “I’m still me,” he says, and that’s answer enough.


End file.
